As she discussed the importance of clinical and IT partnerships in transforming operations, Frase shared how she began working with EHRs. In the early 2000s, she was a resident working in an ICU at a hospital that was undergoing the switch from paper to electronic records. She was so frustrated by that experience that she wanted to avoid EHRs altogether, but ultimately, she accepted a role to train other physicians on an EHR.
“All of my background came from just being somebody who hated EHRs and wanting to make them better. In the years of training physicians, I found that I was actually good at picking out what the problems were with EHRs and coming up with ways to make things better,” she said.
At Ozarks Healthcare, Frase champions the need for data and analytics to improve the EHR experience for clinicians. She also highlighted the importance of industry collaboration. “This has never been just about me and my organization. It’s always been about, how do we make EHRs better for everyone who uses them?” Frase said.
EXPLORE: How does EHR optimization improve clinical workflows?
How Emory Healthcare Added Apple Devices into Its Ecosystem
Another session offered lessons on trying a new operating system and deploying new devices, especially after years of being averse to such change.
At Emory Healthcare, Vice President of Applications and Digital Experience Laura Fultz shared how providers had asked if they could bring their Apple devices to work and if they would be supported — they had been told “no” for a while.
But after a leadership change, coinciding with Epic’s work on Hyperspace for Mac, the timing was right to launch a new program deploying Apple devices, Fultz said. It also helped that the organization could make the financial case as well: CTO Scott Smiser added that the total cost of ownership over time would create savings.
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“This was something we weren’t going to do to our clinicians, this was something we were going to do for them,” Fultz said.
The project came to fruition in the summer of 2023, and by the end of that year, Fultz and her team were ready to start a pilot.
She had no zero experience with MacBooks, but Smiser (with nearly 25 years of experience) let her test out a device. In less than a week, she was all in and ready for the project. She had her choice of either an iMac or a Mac mini in her office. To make her decision, she went to the team’s Apple innovation and testing lab, where users could “put hand on keyboard” and see which devices they wanted, Fultz said.
